Kurt Eichenwald

About

Kurt Eichenwald is an American political journalist. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, a senior writer at Newsweek, and an MSNBC correspondent. Online, he is most notable for his Twitter presence, as several gaffes there have made him popular.

History

Eichenwald was born on June 28th, 1961, in Dallas, Texas.^[1] After working on news desks for several years in his early career, he was named The New York Times Wall Street reporter in 1988. At the Times, he won several awards for excellence in journalism, particularly related to corruption and corporate scandals. One story he won an award for on child pornography generated controversy after it was revealed that Eichenwald had paid his source $2,000, which he did not disclose to The New York Times.^[11] In 2012, he became a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, and in 2013, joined Newsweek as a senior writer.

Shit Account Tournament

On December 23rd, 2016, Eichenwald won the 2016 Shit Account Tournament, narrowly beating out alt-right author and prominent Pizzagate and #DumpStarWars figurehead Mike Cernovich with 51% of the 8,563 votes cast.

Eichenwald was a number 12 seed and known mostly for an article in Newsweek^[2] in which he wrote about nearly assaulting a third-party voter. However, his presence during the tournament helped him get to the finals, beating the tournament's favorite, Arthur Chu, in the Fuccboi Four. In the weeks of the tournament, Eichenwald tweeted that he was suing a troll who had allegedly given him a seizure by sending him a flashing GIF.^[3] This caused him to quit Twitter in what the tournament organizers dubbed a "breathtaking" meltdown.^[4] The Daily Dot^[5] covered the finale of the tournament. The organizers of the tournament released a video recapping the year's tournament called "One Shitty Moment," shown below.

Epilepsy Controversy

During the tournament, Twitter user @jew_goldstein sent Eichenwald a flashing image in an effort to trigger his epilepsy and cause him to go into a seizure (still image shown below). He succeeded, and Eichenwald did have a seizure.^[6] This prompted Eichenwald to seek legal action against the Twitter user, and pursue criminal and civil court cases. Twitter complied with a judge's subpoena to reveal the real name of @jew_goldstein.^[7] On March 18th, 2017, the BBC reported that the man behind the account had been charged with cyberstalking and could face up to 10 years in prison.^[8]

Tucker Carlson Appearance

On December 15th, 2016, Eichenwald appeared on Tucker Carlson for an interview. After Carlson accused him of partisan journalism, the interview derailed as Eichenwald claimed he had a three-ring binder of all the falsities Carlson ever reported. Eichenwald also attempted to defend earlier tweets which claimed he had a story that then-candidate Donald Trump had been institutionalized in the 1990s, though the story was never published.

Hentai Tweet

On June 7th, 2017, Eichenwald claimed he had been sent an anti-semitic flyer as a result of Tucker Carlson mentioning him on his show. In an effort to prove the veracity of his claim, Eichenwald tweeted an image of him holding the flyer he was sent (shown below).

It was soon noticed that in the image, Eichenwald had a tab on his computer opened to B-Chiku, or Hentai. This led many to joke about the idea that Eichenwald masturbates to hentai pornography. These jokes were covered in Mediaite^[9] (examples shown below).

The following day, Eichenwald defended himself by saying the tab was open because he was "trying to convince his wife that tentacle porn existed."^[10] Eichenwald went so far as to include a screenshot of a conversation with his wife where she verified his story.

Feud With Kyle Kashuv

On March 30th, Eichenwald posted tweets criticizing Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Kyle Kashuv for supporting gun rights. That day, Kashuv tweeted screenshots of the tweets, calling for a boycott against Eichenwald (shown below).^[12]

The following day, YouTuber Mister Metokur uploaded the first in a two-part Internet Insanity series on Eichenwald, describing him as "one of the world's weirdest reporters," with part two uploaded the following day. Within 72 hours, the videos received upwards of 210,000 and 142,000 views respectively.

On April 3rd, Ben Shapiro tweeted an email correspondence in which Eichenwald accused Kashuv of "actively warning to trick journalists." Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 15,000 likes and 10,000 comments.

On April 3rd, The Daily Beast reporter Max Tani tweeted that a Vanity Fair spokesperson denied that Eichenwald was a "contributing editor" for the publication (shown below, left). Shortly after, CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter tweeted that he received a DM from Eichenwald claiming he was a "contributing editor" (shown below, right).

Later that day, Eichenwald tweeted a concession that he was no longer a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, claiming that he only discovered the news due to the Twitter controversy (shown below).^[13]

Search Interest

External References